What the hell is an escape room?

Escape room. AKA room escape, exit game, escape game, and many other names. The long and short of it is that it’s an interactive activity, at a real-life place somewhere. You go there with some friends, get locked in a room and you have an hour to solve all the puzzles and activities in that room, often finishing with finding the code to the exit door, so you can escape.

There are variants, you might not always be trying to ‘escape’ – you might be trying get the code to disarm a bomb, solve a murder mystery or track down a serial killer. You might even be doing some of it outside. Regardless, they’re still broadly referred to as “room escapes”.

Some such escapes are family friendly, some are adult affairs and use horror / scares to a greater / lesser degree. Some involve some physical activity, others are entirely mental pursuits. There are  well over 100 sites in the UK at the time of writing. This site exists to point you at the ones we feel are worth playing, but I’d also check out Exit Games UK’s directory to find the nearest site to you.

The nearest UK touch-stone is probably to think the Crystal Maze – just with less water and Richard O’Brien. Of course, the UK actually even has its own live Crystal Maze attraction in London now, which ironically enough seems to have learned a lot from room escapes…